Eltoro Freeman’s stay with Auburn’s second-team defense turned out to be a short one.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College transfer began working with the Tigers’ first unit at weak-side linebacker a week ago after starting the spring backing up Craig Stevens on the strong side. Freeman is splitting time at weak side with sophomore Spencer Pybus.

“(It’s) not for good,” defensive coordinator Ted Roof said. “We’re certainly just experimenting. ... We’re always looking to figure a way to get our best 11 out there.”’

Freeman has played on the weak side throughout his career, a run-stuffing position he feels better suits his game.

“At Sam (strong side), I was outside the box, so I really couldn’t attack no gaps,” Freeman said. “Linebacker inside the box, now I can really attack the gaps and play football.”

Players have marveled at Freeman’s talent this spring, expecting big things for the sophomore once things click mentally. His teammates and coaches claim to have seen that light come on in the last few days.

“I’m getting real close,” Freeman said. “Coach Roof told me the same thing in the locker room. He said, ‘Eltoro, I see it,’ and I was like, “Yes sir.’”

Some other notes from practice ...

• As mentioned before, redshirt freshman Marcus Jemison has moved from safety to strong-side linebacker, filling a position of need. "You look at his body, the big safety type, which is what you want out there playing to the field," Roof said. "We’re taking a peak at him ... He feels good about getting some reps, working up a sweat instead of watching."

• Jemison had a pretty trying freshman season. He broke his fibula and dislocated his ankle during two-a-days, ending his season. Making matters worse, his mother was recovering from cancer. “I told her I wanted to come (home) and I didn’t feel like playing football anymore,” Jemison said. “She wouldn’t let me come home and I didn’t have a car, so I couldn’t. There was no way I could get there. If I had a car, I probably would have.” They both made strong recoveries, although Jemison said it's still tough to push off on his leg. He wants to get up from 202 pounds to 220 for the start of the season and still has to get the playbook down, something that came into focus during Saturday's scrimmage. “I was lining up wrong but was still making it the ball,” Jemison said. “So coach was like, ‘Imagine if you were lined up in the right position.’”

• We reporters tried and failed to get an update on Antoine Carter's leg injury. Here's how the exchange went with Roof:
  

• Reporter: "Is Hot Carter OK?"
• Roof: "I don’t talk about injuries. That’s Coach Chizik."
• Another reporter: "But Chizik isn’t here?"
• Roof: "Nope, you’re not going to get me to say a word."

• Roof, on Zac Etheridge finally getting out of his non-contact orange jersey. "He’s a high energy guy and loves to play. A guy with that much experience that has been that big a piece to our team, it was good to have him back out there and running around."

• Offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn didn't have much to offer in new details from Saturday's scrimmage, speaking vaguely about the quarterbacks: "Each one of them had a play or two where you go, `Wow, that’s what we’re looking for.’ But at the same time, there were a couple of mental busts; a couple of physical reads that weren’t what we wanted. But they bounced back today, and they corrected the things we talked about."

• Malzahn doesn't know if they'll be able to narrow down the quarterback field by the end of spring. "Ideally, you’d like to have the 'guy,’" he said. "I don’t know if that’s possible. That’s a definite goal. But at least have it narrowed down to two. That’s what we’re looking for now, so we can get a little more specific with our timing. It’s hard to a timing offense when you’re rotating three guys."

• Three QBs are getting equal reps still — Kodi Burns, Neil Caudle and Barrett Trotter. Things don't sound great for Chris Todd at the moment. The senior is still unable to participate because of his shoulder. He's throwing some but the coaches will wait until he is 100 percent to let him go without restrictions on the field. "We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there," Malzahn said of Todd playing. "It’s hard to say right now."

• H-back Mario Fannin is up to about 230 pounds after playing last year at around 220. He says he's lost a little bit of speed and would like to drop some pounds to get some of it back. "I kind of bulked up on my own," he said. "That's one thing coaches took into consideration because they saw as I wanted as far as a personal preference to get bigger and at the same time be fast. That's something they recognized something I was to do. Now it's a matter of losing a couple of pounds to get that speed back."

• Fannin said the extra bulk does help for his new role as the H-back, which requires more run blocking than pass blocking.

• The junior still would like to get some looks at running back, though. "I'm looking forward to it a lot," he said. "That's something I came here for. The spot they have me at now, I'm thrilled to play that also. It's kind of like a bittersweet thing."

• Walk-on redshirt freshman Justin Albert has been in the mix returning punts. "You have to be a baseball player back there, like a center fielder," he said. "So I kind of judge the ball real good, look it in all the way. But it's a lot of good players back there catching, and it's just good competition, everybody wants to compete for a job, so that's what we're doing."

• Linebacker Josh Bynes left Saturday's scrimmage impressed by the speed of the offense. "The offense is so fast. You won't see anything in the SEC like that," he said. "It's going to be trouble for a lot of opponents. They're not going to see anything like this ever. I don't think any team in the country can hang with it. It's so fast. It's so unique. If you don't get the call within a split second and that ball is snapped, everybody's going to be misaligned and it'll be chaos."

• Defensive lineman Antonio Coleman was kind enough to show us this year's defensive unity gimmick. Last year it was hard hats. This year, it's chains. He had a bunch of metal chain links looped together, demonstrating to media members that if one link isn't working, the loop falls apart. I'm not certain, but I think every NCAA team has to have some sort of gimmick to rally behind, whether it's a lunch pail or a shovel or a hard hat. Seems like that's been the case everywhere I've gone.